High resolution digital is dead. The best DAC's killed it.


Something that came as a surprise to me is how good DAC's have gotten over the past 5-10 years.

Before then, there was a consistent, marked improvement going from Redbook (44.1/16) to 96/24 or higher.

The modern DAC, the best of them, no longer do this. The Redbook playback is so good high resolution is almost not needed. Anyone else notice this?
erik_squires
George:
02-15-2019 3:23pm
And all the DSPro’s from Gen 1 were R2R
Sorry, but the Pro prime was only one of the Pro series to be Delta Sigma it used the DS chip SAA7350GP. The Pro Prime II was not DS it had 2 x PCM67P-K R2R chips
read what i wrote, DSPro, not Prime, not Basic, DSPro. regardless, you seem to agree that the DSPros  were R2R, so what's your point?  Maybe I'm missing it...

And the card i was holding had a PCM17XX (i forget) R2R chip on it. Or a BB series that I thought to be R2R (e.g. 17XX, PCMXX) but that was some time back.

Now, as to when PDM/sigma-delta was in wide use (not in labs -- bear in mind that the Theta DSPro G2 is from 1993-4), i recall in 1987-1988 i was looking at the BB PCM54 predecessor to the PCM55 and 64 and it -- and the whole series to come -- was *very new*. BB was  in its R2R days.  Phillips was selling lots of what 1741s or something like that (ancient history!). But R2R was not special - it was simply how most things were done then.
I don't know what gen Cassanova i was holding or what variant - it was a card brought to me bare, with a project in mind. We scuttled that idea after speaking with Theta.
But regardless, my point was that the Theta DSPro was a significantly better performer to the Casanova i was holding, and according to the engineer i spoke with a Theta, the big differences was horsepower to perform the DSPs.  Maybe it was more - i didn't have the time or interest to play twenty questions with someone helping me.... So maybe it was PDM.
so what’s your point?

Take a pill sunshine. I said That the DS PRO PRIME was part of the "DS Pro" series and it was the only one of 9 in that series that was Delta Sigma, the rest all being R2R.

I don’t know what gen Cassanova i was holding

And that the Casanova was also Delta Sigma, it states it in the manual specs and online, here is the page https://ibb.co/zf4T5Xp
You must have been holding on to something else too tight.

Interesting thread. I found my destination digital with the Aries Cerat Kassandra DAC. No up sampling, no filter, and using 16 x AD1865 NK chips. Huge power supplies, tube out (10v) I/V transformers, and huge output transformers. It weights 67 kilos but soundly beats all others I had at home inc:

Hilo interesante. Encontré mi destino digital con el DAC de Aries Cerat Kassandra. Sin muestreo, sin filtro y usando 16 chips AD1865 NK. Enormes fuentes de alimentación, transformadores I / V de salida de tubo (10 v) y enormes transformadores de salida. Pesa 67 kilos, pero supera a todos los demás que tenía en casa: 

1. Ch Precision C1
2. Chord DAVE
3. Lampizator Golden Gate
4. Naim CD555
5. Audio Note DAC 5 Signature

Check out:
https://ariesceratespana.com

There are 3 models of Kassandra DACs, between about $25k and $90K.  Which one did you choose?  
I couldn’t agree more with the OP. The desire for high-res was to reduce the timing artifacts from older DACs.

I have the latest Beresford Caiman SEG DAC which is optimised to more accurately convert an SPDIF clock signal. The stability on Redbook is incredible. Standard Redbook choral music (Thalis Scholars) exhibits only natural harmonics and none of the harmonic timing artifacts that I’d previously assumed were on the recording.

High-res was a temporary workaround.